Danforth: Only Compromise Can Save Us

Jun 18, 2012

RUSH: John Danforth. John Danforth was my high school commencement speaker, the former senator from Missouri. There’s a little paper in St. Louis called the St. Louis Beacon, and they cover a story where Danforth “spoke at the Danforth-Eagleton Lecture in St. Louis on Thursday night. Danforth spoke about Reflections on the Relationship of Religion to Government. ‘Compromise is not a dirty word.’ Danforth said. ‘Compromise is the essence of politics. Compromise is needed to get us out of our current fix.'”

And he laments the loss of Dick Lugar. He laments the Tea Party. He laments partisan conservatism. He said that the compromise that is needed is like that of Bob Dole “when he was Senate majority leader. With Dole, ‘the only way to add any amendment to any bill was with bipartisan sponsorship, usually an equal number of senators from each party,’ said Danforth.” If Dole couldn’t get that, then they didn’t add it. There was no amendment. And we need to get back to that.

We need to get back to working together, and the kind of compromise we need right now is Republicans need to compromise on raising taxes and the Democrats need to compromise on entitlement cuts. And if we could do that, everything would be hunky-dory. (interruption) Well, of course not. “He hasn’t changed.” No! Of course not, he hasn’t changed. There’s no way Danforth’s going to change. These guys are the Jurassic Park politicians. By the way, I’m reminded that we have an exercise pill already. I didn’t think of it. It’s Viagra. (laughing) Yeah. (laughing) I wish I’d-a thought of that on my own.